Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Wagging the Dog

The loons are running the laundromat.

The spin cycle in U.S. politics has been whirring and tumbling away since November 8th over at the White House, and now this: Donald Trump slips his gears for all to see on the social media.

I’m not quite sure what Trump meant when he tweeted “Just found out I had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found! This is McCarthyism.”

I submit that the wording, the conclusion, and the historical comparison are nonsensical — in effect, like a counter-lawsuit from Trump’s business days. It all sounds like it comes from a man/child who recently drop-kicked the waste-paper basket into the next room after pounding on the floor with his fists.

I also noticed that the colic event probably occurred two days after Trump found out that his lying Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, had opted to recuse himself from the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Russians back in 2016. After all, his lying National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn, had just gone into the woodchopper a few days earlier. Anyone could be next, including near relatives.

So a diversion was badly needed. It couldn’t be Crooked Hillary; no sawdust left in that rag doll. It couldn’t be the media, because he’s already accused it of virtually everything but beasteality. Something new was needed.

What he came up with was fresh from the outbox of Elsie the Cow.

Even the language was improbable. Do you know anyone who suspects they are under covert surveillance who says they had their “wires tapped”?

Most people would say “I’ve been wiretapped.” Or that “My phone’s been tapped.” Who says “I just found out I had my wires tapped.”? What wires? The ones sticking out of his tin-foil hat when he communes with Agent Mulder’s clientele?

Christ-on-a-bicycle folks: When someone illegally intercepts your communications, is your first instinct to run for your Smartphone and blow out a Tweet? Is that the first instinct of a normal president of the United States?

But let us continue with the Orange One’s confabulation. Consider his telling conclusion: “Nothing found,” he tweeted. That suggests at least two things. First, the person or agency who told him about the wire-tap also said that nothing was found. So somewhere, there is a wire-tapper and a report of what their surveillance turned up – at least there is according to Trump’s tweet.

Trump of course doesn’t mean that zero activity was recorded on the alleged wire-tap when he says “nothing found.” That would be most strange since that building was doubling as his campaign headquarters. During the campaign, there were thousands of calls coming in and out of what is now the New York White House. No, when Trump says nothing was found, he means no one caught him or any of his staff yakking with the Russians.

This is where the tantrum thickens. Never mind that the Trump campaign has been under scrutiny of the FBI and both houses of Congress for contacts with the Russians during the 2016 election.

Trump is indulging in self-exoneration. He is not only saying that every intelligence agency in the United States has it wrong; he’s saying he is the victim of a wire tap, just now uncovered, that he wants the Congress of the United States to investigate.

And so to the heart of the matter. Trump doesn’t need an investigation. Why? Because he also says he knows who did this to him. It is none other than that legendary, fake commie-hunter, and dirty political trickster, Kenya-born Barack Obama. Yes, one of Obama’s last acts in office was apparently to bug the billionaire using the powers of the presidency as the sun set on his time in office. Obama is a high-tech version of Joe McCarthy, the infamous senator who fomented the Red Scare back in the 1950s.

Get it? Congress and the FBI are investigating the wrong president. They shouldn’t be investigating Donald J. Trump, America’s most patriotic plutocrat. They should be looking into whether one of the most popular and scandal-free presidents in American history abused the investigative powers of U.S. law enforcement in his final days and tapped into the Trump Towers looking for dirt. The Trump counter-punch is always aimed at the crotch.

Working on the theory that Sean Spicer can only tell a few more lies before his head explodes at one of those White House official spankings they still call press conferences, here is what should happen next.

President Trump must tell Americans when he first learned that the Trump Towers had been bugged, including precisely who told him and based on what evidence? In particular, he must immediately produce the evidence that connects Obama to the alleged surveillance.

Of course, Trump will do no such thing, unless you count documented evidence from Breitbart News as solid evidence. There are far more reliable methods of placing the dirty pool cue in Obama’s hands than the fertile imagination of Steve Bannon — if this story is true.

Example. If the the wire-tap were legal, there would be an application under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to get approval for this extraordinary activity. As Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Shumer put it, if there is such a document, that means a judge issued it believing that there was sufficient evidence that the Trump team likely was committing a felony. In other words, the mere existence of a legal wire-tap could be big trouble for Trump.

But the Director of National Intelligence at the time, James Clapper, has categorically denied that the FBI either sought or was given such a warrant. He also categorically denied that any intelligence agency wire-tapped Trump, either as president-elect or presidential candidate. That view was echoed by a bevy of senior intelligence officers.

That would mean that Trump is playing Birther politics again. It would mean that the alleged wire-tap was at best illegal, clandestine and a crime. Or that the whole thing is made up. Just as Trump spent years insisting that Obama was not an American citizen — a claim he made against all the evidence, he is now slandering the former president again, this time as a crook who abused the powers of the presidency to damage a political foe.

The essence of public accusation of a crime is the provision of proof. Instead, Sean Spicer has already said that until Congress does what Trump has asked for, neither he nor the president will be commenting further on the matter. The president is effectively asking the House and Senate intelligence committees to find the evidence he doesn’t have – a hapless diversion from their real task of figuring out whether Vladimir Putin was playing footsie with the Trump team.

This empty ultimatum should be ignored, so that the man who made it can continue his unavoidable journey to impeachment that will end America’s misery.